Somebody told me that it was important to understand ourselves before we could attempt to understand others. I think I’ve lived my life by inhaling fabricated truths enough to blend my coffee breaths with it. Words didn’t break me like how sticks and stones could, but at times it could be fate worse than a regretted tattoo – a permanent scar under the skin, visible to nobody but your own. I think it’s magical to witness when two people are able to exchange their tales, or better yet take their hidden demons out on a play-date. The world functions through norms and wrecks itself in its pursuit, but just like the unnoticed rising and setting of the sun, something so common and ignored actually adds up to why we’re here.

Certain anxieties like bullet holes to a steel-plated wall reverberate voices that sound…